At first it looked like Washington voters overwhelming thought yes. An Elway Poll in September gave it a 66 percent approval rating. But six weeks later that had plummeted to just 46 percent. Pollster Stuart Elway says in 20 years he has never seen a shift like that in such a short amount of time.

What changed in those six weeks?

What you might call an airwaves bombardment. So far both sides have spent a combined $27 million – most of it from out-of-state and for the “no” campaign.

Pollster Elway says if the topic was more visceral, “Abortion for example, you would not see advertising move this many voters around.”

But Elway says on an issue that voters aren’t that familiar with, ads have far more sway. It may be tempting to view this vote as a referendum on GMO, or on how we view our food, or science versus the natural order.

But Daniel Fagin, a professor of science journalism at New York University, says the outcome will say more about campaign funding and politics.

“This is a political battle," he says. "It’s waged with a lot of rhetoric on both sides, a lot of paid media on both sides that is going to be inherently misleading in many ways. So, I wouldn’t attempt to interpret anything bigger from that.”

Fagin hopes after the election – no matter how it turns out – both sides can find a way to return to what he calls a rational discussion about how and when food should be labeled.